Truck wash and basic service, certified CAT scales, motel if you wanted a night out of your rig, barbershop, andâthe bane of her existenceâMom's Grill. They could fuel over a dozen rigs at a time and park hundreds. A massive complex that sat on the I-10 just south of Tucson. Phoebe's Tucson Truck Stopâfounded by and named for Grandma Phoebe Harrowâwas one of the last big independents on the routes. She'd had way more than enough of that as a kid and teen. It was a damn sight better than her gig in her mother's truck stop restaurant playing the “Hi! I'm Robin!” perky waitress.

Her time in the Guard had included certifying for heli-bucket brigade on out-of-control wildfires. She'd spotted the job opening for a temp one-season piloting job and, needing to get out of her post-service life in the worst way, answered the ad. In thirty seconds flat, she went from sleeping bare on top of the covers to lacing her boots. Her flight suit was pre-slipped with fire-retardant cotton long johns and the legs of her flight suit in turn were already in her unlaced boots.

She'd used her dad's firefighter trickâat least her mom was pretty sure her dad had been a firefighter, so she'd watched a lot of firefighter movies and learned what she could.

She was absolutely down with that, no matter how little she actually believed them.Īfter the worst of the clatter in the neighboring dormitory rooms had settled, Robin dropped out of her bunk. In the interview for Mount Hood Aviation, they'd promised her that when it hit, she'd be scrambling. Part two had just been answeredânot very long. She'd lain there wondering just what she'd signed up for and how long it would take for the action to start. Day One on the job, also Day One of the fire season. Robin had been awake and glaring at the blank darkness of the bunkhouse's low plywood ceiling for hours, only now coming visible in the first light through the thin curtains. With no drill sergeant to move them along, there was more shuffle than hustle, but they were moving. She lay in her bunk a moment longer, as grunts rolled out of their own racks up and down the barracks hall, feet thudding to the floor, moans and groans sounding through the thin plywood walls. And, thank all the gods there ever were, not the bloodcurdling “incoming enemy fire” siren that Robin Harrow had heard a lifetime's worth of during her six years of Arizona Army National Guard serviceâboth in practice and during a pair of six-month deployments the AANG had rocked in Afghanistan. Not Macho Man in the Morning on the radio.

Flash of Fire by M.L. Buchman